Here's What We Really Think Of Pokémon TCG Pocket Now That The Honeymoon Phase Is Over

1 week ago 44

The new mobile card game Pokémon TCG Pocket has been with us for just over a week, which has given 20 million people time to discover its highs, lows, and utterly bewildering mess of in-game currencies. It’s also, unfortunately, long enough for most people to have left the honeymoon phase in which the game throws endless items at you, letting you rip open packs of cards with wild abandon before cutting us off hard. Oof, our dopamine.

We’ve pored over what makes the game compelling, what makes it confusing, and how we wish it could be improved. We’ve covered the new events being added as the second week begins and guided new players through its obfuscated opening moments. And we’re still playing it, despite ourselves, because what if we get to pull the Charizard?!

Read on for all the good, bad, and bizarre about Pokémon TCG Pocket.

The gold options in Pokemon Pocket, on a blurry background.

We’ve already very carefully been over the grimly insidious nature of Pokémon TCG Pocket’s unpleasant free-to-play model, but an aspect of this peculiar and enormously successful mobile spin-off from the long-established card game is just how many in-game currencies it has you juggle. So far, there are twelve, and it’s absolutely bewildering. — John Walker

Pokemon cards are shown on a playmat in Pokemon TCG Pocket.

Going first usually has its advantages. Not in Pokémon TCG Pocket. The mobile card game flips the traditional calculus on its head. Going first doesn’t just lose its edge, it feels downright bad. — Ethan Gach

Image: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

There is a way to play the Pokémon TCG on your phone or tablet that is entirely free. Not “free-to-play,” but “free to leave it with your kid and not ever worry.” While it’s not the world’s best piece of software, Pokémon TCG Live is an application that lets you play the full-size, 60-card deck version of the trading card game for an unlimited amount of time and doesn’t feature a single way to pay money. Cards are added to the game using the code cards that come as an extra in physical Pokémon card packs, but they can also be bought in their hundreds for cents from various websites and stores (I throw them in the recycling in stacks), but that’s the end of any expenses. Even if you wanted to, there’s no way to add your bank card to purchase even the silliest of cosmetics. And when it comes to Pokémon, that feels right. — John Walker

Pokemon TCG Pocket booster packs appear overtop of art for the game.

Pokémon has a way inspiring the completionist within people, setting them up on intense collect-a-thons that either take them to unimagined glory or exhaustion laced with deep personal shame. Pokémon TCG Pocket is no different, situating the long-running mania around the card game into a slick, free-to-play package that’s easy to pickup and hard to put down. One fan did the hard work of actually trying to figure out how long it would take on average to get every card currently in the game. The answer isn’t pretty. — Ethan Gach

Screenshot: The Pokémon Company / Kotaku

The pop culture impact of Pokémon has ensured a huge number of people have already checked out Pokémon TCG Pocket, even if it is only as curiosity. The chances are, if you’re among them, the massive amount of content and currencies can be a bit overwhelming, especially if you don’t have any previous experience with the series or other free-to-play games. This guide will explain everything you need to know about Pokémon TCG Pocket. — Simon Estey

A Lapras ex card, on a background of its own art.

Pokémon TCG Pocket is proving to be rather successful. App Magic, a website that estimates mobile app earnings (via Mobilegamer.biz), claims the “free” card game has made over $20 million in its first week on sale from over five million downloads. The app has just launched its second in-game event, and likely the first one any players will have actually noticed: a series of battles that could win you coveted Lapras ex cards for your decks. And, because this game just can’t help itself, it’s a trap. — John Walker

Pokemon cards appear over top of art of a forest

Pokémon TCG Pocket hasn’t even been out for a full week yet, and players have already become obsessed with a conspiracy theory: they believe there’s a way to figure out which booster packs secretly contain better odds of getting some of the game’s rarest cards. That’s because people desperately hunting for an EX Charizard or Misty trainer will take any advantage they can get, even if it’s 100 percent made up. — Ethan Gach

Pokémon TCG Pocket arrived this week on iPhone and Android, and it’s a surprisingly crisp and streamlined version of the card game after years of really bad alternatives. Pokémon is pretty much a license to print money, but TCG Pocket does a great job of spotlighting what people love about about the game—the cards themselves—and getting most of the other stuff out of the way. Still, as a big fan of Marvel Snap, there are a few things I wish the mobile game would steal from Second Dinner’s 2022 comic book phenomenon. — Ethan Gach

A screenshot of a trailer for Pokemon TCG Pocket, showing a full-art Squirtle card on the player's phone.

I’m really averse to trading card games. Despite loving me some Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid and tween, I’ve largely kept my distance from them in the time since. I’ve played a few hands of Hearthstone, I never touched Artifact, and I am straight-up dogshit at any card game baked into an RPG, except for Queen’s Blood in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Maybe it’s all the stories I’ve seen of players spending exorbitant amounts of money to pull rare cards from booster packs, but the pastime seems dominated by greed and status more than the fun of the tactics and interplay between cards that I always valued. — Moises Taveras